Master S-N Curve Fatigue Life Prediction of a Railroad Car Bogie Based on Mesh Insensitive Structural Stress Method

Abstract

Fatigue life prediction of a welded structure is a complex phenomenon due to the nature of fatigue and the welding process. Additionally, Finite Element Method (FEM) results are extremely sensitive to the size of elements. Therefore, it is difficult to adopt a method to estimate the fatigue life, especially for welded structures. Besides, mesh size independence is a critical issue to perform fatigue life prediction methods that eliminates the need for excessive element numbers in the mesh. This paper investigates the Master S-N Curve Approach (MCA) using the output parameters of the mesh insensitive Structural Stress Method (SSM). MCA based on SSM employs structural stresses recovered from nodal forces and nodal moments. To recover these inputs, FEM model should be established properly. Thus, boundary conditions and applied loads were prepared for the model according to the BS EN 13749:2021. The submodeling technique in ANSYS software was used to analyze the bogie structure. To justify the mesh independence for the model, different mesh sizes were tested. In a specific range for shell bodies, SSM was shown to provide sufficient mesh independence feature. Furthermore, MCA was compared with Hot Spot Stress Method and Nominal Stress Method based on their fatigue life estimations.